Rubber Duckie You're The One
by meteoritecrater
Summary: Three times Brittany and Santana played in the bath.


Santana filled her sponge up until it was heavy with water, squeezing it out over her head so there was a waterfall in front of her eyes, and the snow melted from her hair. Brittany's face was ruddy from their play outside, and she was quacking to herself, swimming her pink duck between the bubbles in Santana's bath tub.

"I don't get what's wrong with my bath toys," Santana said, frowning and flattening the bubbles with her hands.

"You're _s'posed_ to play with ducks in the bath. Sesame Street says. 'Oh, rubber duckie, you're the one. You make bath time lots of fun,'" Brittany sang, squeezing her duck to make it squeak along, and swimming it over to bump against Santana's knee. She stopped, her forehead creasing, then continued to sing using random syllables instead of words.

"Ernie's duck is yellow," Santana pointed out, "and that's not how the song goes."

"But mine's a girl duck. And I forget the rest of the words. La ba di bee da ba doo bee da."

Santana huffed. Sometimes Brittany could be really weird. They were best friends and everything, so that meant that if anyone else said it she'd yell at them until they ran away and never said it ever again, but that didn't mean she didn't _notice_.

Brittany started making elephant noises, pushing the duck around the bubbles. "Look, San, it's a duckephant! Donald and Dumbo had a baby!"

Yeah, her best friend could be really weird sometimes, but Santana was laughing as she picked up the shampoo.

Brittany stared at her, her duck falling into the water. "Your mom lets you wash your hair by yourself?"

"'Course," Santana said, because she was in Brittany's house and her mom was far away.

"Cooool," Brittany said, watching with wide eyes as Santana made her hair bubbly. She kept rubbing for longer than she thought she had to, suddenly wondering how she was supposed to get it out. At home her mom usually used the bucket with the smiley face, but her mom didn't let her bring her bath toys to Brittany's even though they were _loads_ cooler than her stupid duck. But the water was down there, and her hair was up there, and well, there was only one thing for it. Santana took a breath and shoved her head down into the water, shaking it around until she was pretty sure most of the shampoo would be gone.

When she came back up triumphantly, Brittany had Santana's sponge in hand, and she was paying more attention to the duck than she was to Santana's super hair washing. She was good enough at it that she should be a hair washer when she was older or something, and Brittany was… wait, what _was_ Brittany doing?

"Britt! That's my sponge!" Santana said, snatching it back and staring at the pockmarks from where Brittany had been tearing off chunks. "What are you…" she looked up to find a piece of her sponge in Brittany's hand, pressed up against the rubber duck's beak. She spluttered incoherently, trying to find the words to yell at Brittany that it was _her_ sponge and that feeding rubber ducks with sponges was _stupid_ because sponges weren't bread and anyway the duck wasn't real, but—

"Your hair looks so pretty," Brittany said, smiling in that way that had meant she'd been chosen as Santa's fairy helper like every year, just because of how pretty her face got. Secretly, Santana thought that was kind of mean of Santa, because she would make just as good of a fairy even if she wasn't as blonde as some of the kids in their grade. But if she couldn't get to do it, then Brittany was a pretty good second choice. "Can you do mine that way? Pleeease, San?"

And Santana forgot about her sponge, because Brittany was smiling at her and _anyway_, if she wanted to be a hair washer when she grew up she'd better start practicing now.

Santana started to think that maybe they were getting a bit too old for this when Brittany took her shirt off, and suddenly Santana realised that she had _boobs_. Or like, almost boobs. Her own chest felt way too flat. Quinn had been grumbling loudly about how uncomfortable her bra was the other day, which was dumb because Santana was pretty sure that she didn't have any boobs _for_ a bra, but whatever. Maybe tomorrow she could get her mom to go shopping for training bras with her, just so she wouldn't be left behind or something. Not that she couldn't take on Quinn Fabray; she'd proved that just this week with the whole Santa's fairy mess. Maybe Santana had wanted it for herself just this last year before they got too old, but it was only pulling a stupid cart with presents around, and it was _Brittany_'s job, not Quinn's. Quinn wasn't half as pretty as Brittany, and if she said she was again, she'd do way worse than put gum in her hair. She'd gotten into a whole heap of trouble because Quinn had had to chop some of it off, but it was totally worth it for Brittany's grin.

"Rubber duckie, you're the one," Brittany sang, nudging Santana's knee with the duck. Santana shivered, slipping further into the heat of the water.

"You make bath time lots of fun," Santana sang along, continuing with the rest of the song as Brittany hummed along. Brittany had never managed to learn the rest of the words, which was weird because she knew _every_ word to every Avril Lavigne song; she totally wasn't as dumb as people thought she was.

"Your voice is so pretty. You should sing more," Brittany said, her hand brushing over Santana's leg. A flush raised on Santana's cheeks; maybe _that_ was the reason Brittany hadn't bothered to learn the rest of the words.

"I'm gonna be a singer when I grow up," Santana said brazenly.

"I'll totally be your back up dancer! And we can like, travel everywhere, it'll be _awesome_."

That did sound kind of awesome. "We should practice, then," Santana said, her mind filling with plans of touring places that weren't Lima, with Brittany on stage beside her.

"Okay! I'll get the camera, we can do music videos," Brittany said, standing to hop out of the bath.

Santana was about to mention that she hadn't gotten to wash her hair yet, but then she saw that her sponge was lying untouched next to her, and she got up to join her before Brittany could try and feed her duck with it again.

When she picked up her sponge to go home, there were small, torn off pieces, lying underneath it. She was _totally_ going to yell at Brittany for ruining her stuff _again_, but then her mom was ringing the doorbell and there was really only time for a quick hug, and if she accidentally kissed her shoulder a little bit then that wasn't weird at _all_, it was just a thing friends did when they really liked each other.

(And they were super pretty.)

Nothing much had changed, Santana thought, with a lazy smile. Except that now, they were on the same side of their new bathtub, in their new home, with their new-

Brittany quacked softly in her ear, and Santana groaned a laugh.

"I swear to God, Britt, if you try and feed that stupid duck my new sponge I will… hmf," Santana said, unable to think of a drastic enough threat with Brittany's fingers running through her hair like that. "That's what the old one's for." She opened one sleepy eye, tilting her head back into Brittany's chest. Her stomach was pleasantly full from their first meal made in their own kitchen (Brittany had forgotten to put something over the top of the pasta sauce and it had exploded all over their microwave, but otherwise it had gone off without a hitch), and Brittany's arms were warm around her. Her lips brushed against Santana's in a slow, wet kiss, and she hummed softly, forgetting the duck and the sponges all together.

"Okay, I won't touch your new sponge," Brittany said agreeably, nimble fingers dipping under the water.

Santana's breath caught, suddenly wide awake again. "Britt, we don't have to break in every single piece of furniture in every single room," she said dryly, but she half-turned to press her lips to her shoulder, nipping her skin.

"But it's so much fun."

"Well, we don't need to do it all on the first day. Leave something for later."

"But it's so much _fun_," Brittany repeated. Santana would have laughed with her, but Brittany's fingers were commanding most of her attention. Santana's lips dragged her whimpers across Brittany's neck, as the water pulsed with their movements.

When Santana had caught her breath and her palm slipped languidly down the slope of Brittany's stomach, Brittany stopped her with a light nip to her ear. "We still haven't made it to the bed yet."

"Best for last," Santana promised, but she ran more hot water into the bath to give them more time. Because sitting here, with her back pressed against Brittany's chest, exchanging soft, idle kisses, as Brittany sang and danced her duck through the water - this felt more like home than anything else ever had.

Brittany had been humming softly, but she put her lips next to Santana's ear and sang half a line with a heady purpose: "You're the one." Brittany nudged Santana's knee with the beak of the duck, and when Santana tipped her head to look at her, she knew that nothing would ever be prettier to her than that smile.

When Santana took out the plug and saw the small, torn off pieces of sponge lying at the bottom of the bath, all she could do was shake her head. How could she begrudge the duck its dinner?

She took a quick look behind her, and bent down in front of the rubber duck, where it sat on top of her sponge. "We're kind of super lucky, hey, bro." Santana grinned and reached her fist out to tap it against one of the duck's small pink wings, before leaving to join Brittany in their new bedroom.


End file.
